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All Roads Lead to The New

January 21st, 2013 . Posted in New York City | Comments Off on All Roads Lead to The New

Saturday – January 19, 2013

The City starts slower on Saturday mornings. Fewer people are out. No one is rushing to get anywhere. The weather forecasters predicted a mild day so I had arranged to visit my son who lives in midtown Manhattan. CeeGee is working on a photography project so he wanted to visit several sites in New York to take photos. I’m always game to tag along on his obscure photographic adventures.

Spring in New York

The smell of curry filled the air when I climbed out of the subway station on East 28th Street. The neighborhood is now known as “Little India.” Off duty taxi cabs were parked along Lexington Avenue where Indian restaurants line both sides of the street.

New Exhibit at The New Museum

We strolled down the center of the new pedestrian walkway on 25th Street. CeeGee commented that the NYC commissioner of roads hates cars and has created many areas closed to vehicular traffic. “I love it!” he commented. “There are more bike lanes and pedestrian-only spaces in the city.”

Ceci Cela

We continued east on 25th Street almost to the river. Several hospitals in the area are still closed after they were flooded during Hurricane Sandy. CeeGee snapped his photos and we walked back to take a 2nd Avenue bus downtown.

Spectators

We got off the bus in the Lower East Side. This area has weathered many changes over the years and is currently becoming gentrified with new apartment buildings, brownstone renovations, and boutique hotels. As we passed one the these new hotels, we asked, “Who would have stayed at a hotel on Orchard Street just ten years ago?”

Marble Bag

CeeGee’s photographic destination was the Bowery Mission, which happens to be right next door to his favorite musuem: The New Museum. We ran into the museum for a quick peek at the work of the contemporary artist, Rosemarie Trockel. Three floors of the artist’s works demonstrated a wide variety of materials and phases of her expressive life.

Marble Styrofoam

CeeGee continued to take pictures of buildings and places we passed. We had a nice lunch in Ceci Cela, the French Patisserie on Spring Street. This tiny bakery has been praised for many years as having the best croissants in the entire city.

Retro Statue

Well fortified, we continued to Houston Street. We had to make a stop at Russ & Daughters to pick up a few delicacies, like white-fish salad, nova lox, and cream herring. Then we continued to our favorite Il Laboratorio del Gelato, for a refreshing taste of the best gelato in NYC.  

Live Your Dream

I love “The City”.  So much to do.  So much to see.  So much to photograph. So much to love!

Chance Meeting on a Commuter Train

January 18th, 2013 . Posted in Local Stuff, New York City | Comments Off on Chance Meeting on a Commuter Train

Wednesday – January 16, 2013

I arrived at Grand Central Station in time to catch the 6:45 train. I quickly stepped into one of the cars and sat down on the end of a three-seat bench. The train was crowded and in no time, the other seats filled up. A women stood over me and asked to take the seat next to mine. I nodded and let her in.

We started to talk and she told me she had walked up to Grand Central from 14th Street because she couldn’t get on the subway. I told her I usually try to avoid rush hour. She asked me what I do in my retirement and I told her about my writing group and how I enjoy writing and sharing with a wonderful group of women.

She began to talk about the challenges of writing and described her experience of initially writing for other people.  Then she discovered the joy of writing for herself. She had found her voice, I thought. She said she had started writing vignettes about her personal life, but lately she was writing longer pieces with broad themes of common human emotions and experiences. She built her stories around a tiny kernel of personal events or people in her life, but her stories were largely fiction.  I marveled at how easily she could cross over from reality to fiction.

I watched as the woman took her cell phone out of her bag and scrolled through her Notes app. She spoke softly as she handed her phone to me. “I guess I can show you my writing, since I don’t know you.” I slowly read a beautiful and very well constructed poem. I was surprised how good it was. “Rap, tap, tap,” the poem began to describe the sound of a branch outside a window gently tapping on the side of a house. Her imagery was clear and her word-choices were perfect. A pang of envy ran through my body. She said she wrote easily and didn’t know where the ideas and inspirations came from. “They just flow when I start writing,” she stated.

I told her honestly what I liked about the poem and how good it was. She said she had a long commute on the train and she writes every day on her cell phone. Then she scrolled through a hugh number of entries and handed her phone to me again. I read a touching story of a woman who yearned to have meaningful communication with her father but arrived too late to talk to him. The story was still a draft and needed work in the middle, but the beginning and end of the story were well constructed.

All of a sudden I realized that people were lining up in the aisle and we had arrived at my station. I quickly told the woman that I thought her writing was wonderful and encouraged her to keep writing. I assured her that her writing was very good.  She beamed and extended her hand, “Thank you. My name is Sondi. It was a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “What a wonderful chance meeting this has been. I don’t usually share my writing with anyone. I appreciate your encouragement.”

I shook her hand as I introduced myself and thanked her for inspiring me. I waved goodby and smiled as I walked to the open door of the train. I glanced back at Sondi. Her head was down over her cell phone. Her fingers were busily typing on the tiny keys.

I smiled as I stepped onto the platform and into the cold night air. It felt good to have met an author who needed encouragement and a few kind words. I hope to read Sondi’s literary works in an important literary vehicle in the future. Her writing was that good. Who knows, perhaps I launched a new exciting career for a stranger.            

Art and Culture for the New Year

January 13th, 2013 . Posted in New York City | Comments Off on Art and Culture for the New Year

Sunday – January 13, 2013

We enjoy hopping into the car early on Sunday mornings to drive to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before the tourists arrive later in the day.  It’s a short pleasant ride into the city without much traffic.

Egyptian Obelisk in the Park

There were several exhibits we wanted to see this winter before they ended. Check the Museum’s website for additional information. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted in the temporary exhibit rooms, so my photos were taken in the main galleries of the imposing building.

The New Roman Wing

We first went to the exhibit entitled, Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop. Here on display were photographs taken and manipulated in dark rooms by dozens of very patient and talented photographers during the last century. It was a fun exhibit and we chuckled at the photos. The exhibit across the hall entitled, After Photoshop: Manipulated Photography in the Digital Age was less than thrilling for me.

Between the Wings

The Henri Matisse exhibit was well advertised and called “the blockbuster of the season”. I had read that it included only 48 of the French artist’s works and was curated to show Matisse’s range of experimentation and creativity. I love the bright colors and vivid patterns in the paintings. I enjoy revisiting Matisse’s works because they are always fresh and surprising.

The Charles Engelhard Court

Then we found the Sau-Wing Lam Collection of Rare Italian Stringed Instruments exhibit. It’s always exciting to see rare and beautiful instruments and marvel at the craftsmanship of the pieces. They are incredible works of art. It would be nice to hear the instruments played as well.

Arms and Armor

The eye-opening exhibit for us was the Extravagant Inventions: Princely Furniture of the Roentgens. We had never heard of Abraham Roentgen and his son David who, we learned, were Europe’s premier cabinetmakers from 1742 to the early 1800s. Their clients included Marie Antoinette and the kings of France, Catherine the Great of Russia, and other royals and wealthy people in Europe at the time. The pieces of unbelievably gorgeous furniture were accompanied by videos which demonstrated how the pieces unfolded with panels, secret drawers, ledges, and drawers. Each piece of furniture was a complicated mechanical device with internal moving parts. Most of the furniture were from private collections or European museums and never before seen in the U.S. I highly recommend viewing any piece of Roentgen furniture any where possible.

Plaster Cast of Canova’s Cupid & Psyche

The Metropolitan Museum of Art continues to improve their website to include detailed descriptions and photographs of their collections and their special exhibitions.  It is a wonderful place to spend a few hours on a Sunday morning without the crowds.

Wandering toward the Light at the End

November 3rd, 2012 . Posted in Family, Local Stuff | Comments Off on Wandering toward the Light at the End

Saturday – November 3, 2012

Despite our best efforts, the hotel was fully booked and had no rooms available for tonight.  Several Google searches also produced nothing. Luckily one of my cousins called me on my cell phone to ask how we were doing.  As soon as she heard that we were at a hotel and looking for shelter, she invited us to stay at her house.  The invitation was so generous and much appreciated by us because we dreaded spending another cold night at home.  After a long hot shower at the hotel, we packed our bags and left Norwalk.  We drove to our house, hoping that the power was restored.  But, no such luck.  Gallivanting Grandma began to have new meaning as we wandered seeking a warm place to spend the night.

Before going to my cousin’s house, we stopped to purchase some wonderful Italian pastries at a nearby bakery which had power.  Then we drove to my cousin’s lovely house.  We had good conversation and lots of  laughs.  We looked at old family photos and ate a delicious home-cooked dinner.  It was a long-overdue visit.  As we finished dinner, Jeff checked his mobile phone to see if we had power at home.  Our home phone rang and the recording machine answered.  We had electricity!!  Unbelievable!!  After a while, we said our fond goodbyes and drove home with great expectations.  Yes, we had power.  Our wanderings were over.  Heat and light at last……

Hanging in There – Waiting

November 2nd, 2012 . Posted in Family, Local Stuff | Comments Off on Hanging in There – Waiting

Friday – November 2, 2012

The temperatures were steadily dropping and the house was very cold.  We had braved two more cold nights at home and roamed northern Westchester by day seeking warm places to hang out.  I felt like a homeless person seeking food and the warmth of shelter.  This morning Jeff said, “Let’s pack a bag and get out of here!”  So we did.  We packed our small travel suitcases, grabbed our cameras and portable computers, and drove away with no particular destination.  I had always wanted to do this, but in more positive circumstances.

We only got as far as Brewster, NY and drove into the parking lot of the Ever-Ready Diner on Route 84.  They had power and internet service and we wanted lunch.  Jeff did a Google search of available hotels and found one room in Norwalk, Connecticut so we grabbed it.  It took almost an hour to drive to the Hilton Garden Inn and we found it easily with Jeff’s “talking lady”.  That’s what we call his portable GPS.  We checked in and asked why they had rooms available when no one else did.  The young man behind the desk said that someone had mistakenly double booked ten rooms and when the error was noted those rooms became available.  We were lucky enough to be searching at just that moment.  Now, an hour later, there were NO rooms left for the rest of the week.  There were so many people without power that all the hotels in the area were full and charging top rates.

The first thing we did when we entered the room was turn up the heat!  After the room was toasty, I took a nice long bath in really hot water.  For tonight, we had a warm place to sleep.  So nice……

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